Bungie does not rule out the possibility of a PC version of Destiny later on - just not at launch.

Destiny, Bungie's new sci-fi shooter, is launching on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Curiously, (especially considering that it is a shooter), it won't be available on the PC. Talking to Eurogamer, Bungie explains the reasoning for this, which basically boils down to "it's too much work."

"So when I'm playtesting and I'm trying to play PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PS3, that's a lot of work. Adding another thing on there is just crazy. It's crazy to think of right now," said design lead Lars Bakken. "I think four platforms on day one is a lot, considering we've been a one platform team for a very long time," added Bungie COO Pete Parsons.

However, both men stressed that Bungie is a studio of around 500 people, and obviously a lot of them are PC gamers themselves. "What is also true is that, as you might imagine, we're all hardcore PC players ... So we care a lot about the PC," said Parsons. He didn't rule out the possibility of a PC version later on down the line - just definitely not at launch.

"I look forward to our future conversations around PC."

As for those claiming that a PC port would be "easy" considering games are built on PCs in the first place, "It is not nearly as simple as you think," explained Parsons. "It is one central world no matter what the platform, and so that requires lots of intensive thought."

"Frankly, it's not a thought we can spend time thinking about right now. Just building up the game and putting it across generations of platforms, and working on platforms we've never worked on before with the PlayStation 3, these are very big challenges. I'm thankful we have the engineering team we do."

But don't you make/program your games on PC? logically speaking, shouldn't be able to run there by default? I'm not a programmer, but that's how I've always understood it, given plenty of developers will showcase a demo build of a game ON a PC prior to launch. I feel like this is just a poor excuse when I would have just as happily accepted "we don't want do" as their reason.

Truthfully, for as little as I know about the game (basically, anything beyond it's a bungie shooter set in space) I'm not broken up about it.

*Head desk* Yeah, I can see this being taken well by the PC gaming community. Then again, some people are probably going to overreact to this and making it way more of a problem than it is...ugh, a mess, the whole situation.

Shooters are actually a lot more popular on console than PC, at least in the US. Nearly 3 times more popular on consoles even. The PC market is pretty dominated by strategy games, then casual (possibly indie?) games and then RPGs. Shooter are on level with Action-Adventure for the PC. (Surprisingly they're not the most popular genre on consoles either. That goes to Action-Adventure, but at console shooters still take up 20% of the market)http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf

EDIT: Actually those stats probably doesn't take Team Fortress 2 into account. The sales were just 2014 sales, so it's probably a case of PC gamers loving their shooters, but specifically loving the shooters they already own.

I'm torn. On the one hand I think they're incredible morons for ignoring the massive MMO community and huge FPS community on PC. Then again, nothing about this game looks particularly awesome, so we may be dodging a bullet.

On topic, so, fuck pc's then, again, anyone really that surprised? We got shafted on the Halo series too, in my house we would've loved some Lan battles, but slowly, lan games are being phased out, as is couch co-op.

BrotherRool:Shooters are actually a lot more popular on console than PC, at least in the US. Nearly 3 times more popular on consoles even. The PC market is pretty dominated by strategy games, then casual (possibly indie?) games and then RPGs. Shooter are on level with Action-Adventure for the PC. (Surprisingly they're not the most popular genre on consoles either. That goes to Action-Adventure, but at console shooters still take up 20% of the market)http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf

That fact is made a bit worse by the fact that shooters aren't widely available on PC, so, y'know, there's that.

SilverUchiha:But don't you make/program your games on PC? logically speaking, shouldn't be able to run there by default? I'm not a programmer, but that's how I've always understood it, given plenty of developers will showcase a demo build of a game ON a PC prior to launch. I feel like this is just a poor excuse when I would have just as happily accepted "we don't want do" as their reason.

Truthfully, for as little as I know about the game (basically, anything beyond it's a bungie shooter set in space) I'm not broken up about it.

But there are certain things which are absolutely demanded of any PC game, the ability to adjust resolution, graphic settings, mouse and keyboard support, key remappings etc which are all surprisingly difficult to do. If they released the game as it came out of the machine there would probably be riots on the internet about it. It's not like the idea that they might not get the game at all has ever stopped someone before.

There's also trying to bug test umpteen different graphic cards and sets of drivers. That's probably not fun or fast

SilverUchiha:But don't you make/program your games on PC? logically speaking, shouldn't be able to run there by default? I'm not a programmer, but that's how I've always understood it, given plenty of developers will showcase a demo build of a game ON a PC prior to launch. I feel like this is just a poor excuse when I would have just as happily accepted "we don't want do" as their reason.

Truthfully, for as little as I know about the game (basically, anything beyond it's a bungie shooter set in space) I'm not broken up about it.

For people to than complain about it being a broken mess? No I don't think just banging out a PC version last minute will do anyone any favours.

erttheking:*Head desk* Yeah, I can see this being taken well by the PC gaming community. Then again, some people are probably going to overreact to this and making it way more of a problem than it is...ugh, a mess, the whole situation.

Vault101:Considering this game looks like 59% hype ill be glad to wait

That's a charitable estimate. I don't even think most people know anything about this besides "from the makers of halo!"

Well it's not like there's anything more to know about the game. For a while I thought that I didn't really know anything about the game because I hadn't really been following it or paying attention to it. Nope. I think today is the first day where we've gotten any substantial amount of information, and even then, some critical stuff like how the online features they've been touting actually work. There's a difference between leaving in some surprises for launch and not even being able to give us a good elevator pitch.

And you've been able to preorder the game since they first announced it. Because of course you can.

On topic: I call bullshit. I can guarantee that if they did a halfway decent pc port that it would more than make back whatever they invested into it, not to mention it would be way more likely to be successful if they released it around the same time. And there's no real reason they can't outsource the PC port if it really is that difficult to make (which I'm not convinced of). I know I would rather have the port be outsourced if it means getting a good, timely port than having to wait six months for it.

Talk about an inflammatory title. You know for a fact that it could have been worded more neutrally.

Anyway, the Escapist community seems to have decided that Destiny is going to suck, judging by the last couple of articles about a game not due out until September. So that's another forum topic I'll avoid clicking on. I personally don't get a sense of satisfaction from "calling" that a game will be bad, so I'll actually wait for reviews. I trust Bungie, because I've liked all their games so far.

SilverUchiha:But don't you make/program your games on PC? logically speaking, shouldn't be able to run there by default? I'm not a programmer, but that's how I've always understood it, given plenty of developers will showcase a demo build of a game ON a PC prior to launch. I feel like this is just a poor excuse when I would have just as happily accepted "we don't want do" as their reason.

Truthfully, for as little as I know about the game (basically, anything beyond it's a bungie shooter set in space) I'm not broken up about it.

But there are certain things which are absolutely demanded of any PC game, the ability to adjust resolution, graphic settings, mouse and keyboard support, key remappings etc which are all surprisingly difficult to do. If they released the game as it came out of the machine there would probably be riots on the internet about it. It's not like the idea that they might not get the game at all has ever stopped someone before.

There's also trying to bug test umpteen different graphic cards and sets of drivers. That's probably not fun or fast

All of that stuff generally comes with whatever engine they are using, modders and small indie studios can and do choose to add it into their games. It doesn't have to be created from scratch it just needs a UI that can access the features, you would expect for a studio of Bungies size and their experience that it would be a fairly routine task. Even in custom engines code is built into it to allow the devs to fiddle and fettle the games performance during optimisation

People often throw around the word "easy" which isn't strictly true but when you have the resources of a big studio, the depth of experience in the team and all of the hardware and money they have the task does become "relatively easy" rather than truly easy. Like when everyone said it would be easy for Microsoft to remove all the bullshit DRM and online checking crap and mandatory Kinect, Microsoft PR tried to defend it by saying "how can something like that be easy? Its a huge technical challenge, it wouldn't be easy at all", which was true but when you have so many skilled hardware and software engineers on hand that challenge can be relatively easily overcome.

I will say that Bungie do have a point though, this game is online dependant and releasing on all those platforms. Servers are going to melt as it is because we have all seen how well that usually works and its going to be hard enough to run the game and its features as it is, adding another platform would make it even harder.

Why are people offended by this as if Bungie was giving the finger to each PC gamer personally? Seems like there's a myth going around that programmers work a day then take the week off. It makes absolutely no sense to say they're just being lazy. Game makers are hourly like the rest of us, and in a way it doesn't matter to them how much content is in the game. They're not putting it on PC so it can come out to their main audience at a more reasonable date and so they can focus on making it stable on a few platforms.

Clowndoe:Why are people offended by this as if Bungie was giving the finger to each PC gamer personally? Seems like there's a myth going around that programmers work a day then take the week off. It makes absolutely no sense to say they're just being lazy. Game makers are hourly like the rest of us, and in a way it doesn't matter to them how much content is in the game. They're not putting it on PC so it can come out to their main audience at a more reasonable date and so they can focus on making it stable on a few platforms.

Hourly is putting it mildly 90% of the time. Anytime devs talk about crunch time and other-such development transitions, I genuinely feel like they're all crazy.

OT:"Boohoo my PC can't play this game, bet it's a bad game doe, huehue" is what I'm reading a lot of in this thread. OBVIOUSLY if they're TOO LAZY to release a game on five platforms, it's going to blow massive amounts of phalli. :D Choo choo, hype-train off-boarding at Expectationsville.

hopefully PC gets a port sometime down the line, the PC market right now generates more revenue than the console market, so they shouldnt have put all their eggs on the console basket, specially when it comes to favoring last gen consoles over PC, not only is it more work, but it drags development down and the playerbase of those consoles is on their way out

Klaw117:Isn't this really old news except that Bungie's excuse last time was "not wanting to spread ourselves to thin"?

I don't expect a PC port of this game to come out at all. Activision is the publisher and it is notoriously anti-PC.

WouldYouKindly:Actually, I'm just sick of my particular gaming demographic being a goddamn afterthought to many devs.

Oh no. Your platform of choice is not being catered to RIGHT NOW, better go be PC elitist about it... Seriously, everyone gets the shaft at one point because their platform is not supported at all or is an afterthought. For the longest time consoles were being neglected in favor of PCs and now it has come full circle. At least they're considering a port after all this work is done, instead of just pumping out a shitty port to satisfy your gaming demographic for the short term. I wonder though, if they did just shit out a port would this same demographic be complaining that Bungie was just too lazy to take the time to make a good port...

WouldYouKindly:Actually, I'm just sick of my particular gaming demographic being a goddamn afterthought to many devs.

Oh no. Your platform of choice is not being catered to RIGHT NOW, better go be PC elitist about it... Seriously, everyone gets the shaft at one point because their platform is not supported at all or is an afterthought. For the longest time consoles were being neglected in favor of PCs and now it has come full circle. At least they're considering a port after all this work is done, instead of just pumping out a shitty port to satisfy your gaming demographic for the short term. I wonder though, if they did just shit out a port would this same demographic be complaining that Bungie was just too lazy to take the time to make a good port...

Aaactualy, just a few years (read around the time Jimothy Sterling joined us) there was all sorts of up in arms-ness over how PC gaming is dying and blah blah blah. So, yeah, there's that. Also, with regards to the whole porting thing-we tend to get the shaft on those also, be they good titles or bad, they seem to be ported wholesale bulk brand coding rather than taking the time to ensure a good solid stability and userfriendliness, which might be because lolmods, but I digress.

I really don't see anything wrong with this. First, the audience on the consoles they are going to be launching on first is huge and contains their most ardent fans. It's easy to dismiss 360 and PS3 versions of the game, but those systems have huge install bases of gamers who may already be Bungie fans and who don't have a lot of other options in the genre Destiny is going for. Second, they've basically confirmed that they will at least be looking at a PC version later unlike, say, RockStar and GTA5.

Well it's not like there's anything more to know about the game. For a while I thought that I didn't really know anything about the game because I hadn't really been following it or paying attention to it. Nope. I think today is the first day where we've gotten any substantial amount of information, and even then, some critical stuff like how the online features they've been touting actually work. There's a difference between leaving in some surprises for launch and not even being able to give us a good elevator pitch.

Huh. I thought my lack of knowledge was also due to lack of interest. They've stirred up this much hype with that little?

And you've been able to preorder the game since they first announced it. Because of course you can.

Because HALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

On topic: I call bullshit. I can guarantee that if they did a halfway decent pc port that it would more than make back whatever they invested into it, not to mention it would be way more likely to be successful if they released it around the same time. And there's no real reason they can't outsource the PC port if it really is that difficult to make (which I'm not convinced of). I know I would rather have the port be outsourced if it means getting a good, timely port than having to wait six months for it.[/quote]

Normally, I'd disagree. We don't have much in the way of sales figures on PC because the physical market is dead and Valve doesn't disclose. PC aversion is a thing, though, and it's enough to bring the PC market into question. However, this being "from the makers of Halo," I can see it certainly being huge. I'd be shocked if it didn't sell well on PC.